Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

I WAS sorry to read of the death of Olga Rudge, the longtime companion of the late poet Ezra Pound.

Interesting points have been raised by the obituaries. I read in one of these that Olga was Pound's mistress, but not "in the conventional sense." This surprised me because in my old fashioned way I believe that the situation of a mistress is by definition unconventional, as least in the circles in which I move (which are neither particularly exalted nor lowly).

No doubt I have not "kept up". However, it appears the obituarist simply meant that Olga was never supported financially by Ezra, but earned her keep as a professional violinist.

Pound had no shillings or pence.

Faintly amusing and largely true.

I was also interested to read how in their last decade together in Venice, Olga repulsed bogus biographers: "They ring my bell and announce they are writing books that will tell both sides. Both sides! What do they think we are? Ezra Pound is no pancake."

A fruitcake, but not a pancake.

That is rather unkind. It is true that Pound spent 12 years in an insane asylum. As is well known, he had been charged with treason after an extremely naive series of broadcasts from Italy towards the end of the second World War, but the American authorities, prior to testing dubious charges in court, instead declared him insane and locked him up.

Anyway. Olga's rebuff to bogus biographers was quite right, in my far from humble opinion. The notion that people have different "sides" is popular among amateur psychologists, even among some of the professionals. I do not hold with it. To me it is tiresome to hear and read of somebody possessing "another side", whether it be politicians "letting their hair down" or clowns revealing they are prone to depression.

Even more foolish is the forlorn belief that we are multi faceted, like diamonds.

It appears to me more likely that psychologically we are constructed in the form of a Mobius Strip.

Very fancy.

Yes and why not? Man is a noble piece of work. The Mobius Band or Strip is an example of a non orientable surface. It can he illustrated by taking a strip of paper several times longer than wide and sticking the two ends together after twisting one by a half turn.

The strip or band is onesided in the sense that an ant could crawl along the whole length of the strip without crossing a bounding edge, and find itself at the starting point on the "other side".

That's more like the way we are, personality wise. In terms of gawking at other people's personalities, maybe it depends on what angle you stand at.

Anyway. Pound's life with Olga was complex. It appears that at one stage, while he was dividing his life between Olga and his wife Dorothy, the latter came to live with Olga in Rapallo.

That must have been difficult. What about Ezra?

It seems he felt trapped between them.

Did he say so? Is there something on record?

He observed Reilly - beg pardon, he observed wryly that neither of them could cook.

He wasn't so crazy at all maybe.

I find it disappointing that someone so learned and hardworking as Pound, a classical scholar and linguist, someone who had a huge influence on English literature in this century, a man who gave much assistance to other writers, including Joyce, Yeats and Eliot, should be remembered principally for having been committed to an asylum.

That's life.

Your blitheness would irritate some people.

Pound helped Yeats, did you say?

He encouraged him, successfully, to develop a leaner style. And incidentally married the daughter of Yeats's friend Olivia Shakespear.

Anything to William?

Your jests this morning are particularly weak.

Have you anything better?

Probably not. Hold on: what did St Patrick say to the snakes when he was driving them out of Ireland?

Tell us quick.

He said: "Are ye all right in the back there?"

I don't get it.

There is no getting to it.